Sunday, September 16, 2007

In his view such powerful forces as official propaganda and state coercion distort human psychology and relationships and thus stifle intellectual development and social life in general.

"It is no easy task to gain some understanding of human affairs. In some respects, the task is harder than in the natural sciences. Mother Nature doesn't provide the answers on a silver platter, but at least she does not go out of her way to set up barriers to understanding. In human affairs, such barriers are the norm. It is necessary to dismantle the structures of deception erected by doctrinal systems. . . ."

He seeks to uncover how indoctrination systems work to prevent people from gaining a real and practical understanding of the major questions of our world, and how they enable intellectuals to exempt their government from criticism of the very same evils for which they easily (and rightly, but safely) condemn other governments.

Washington is well aware that Americans would not accept the real purposes of its policies and have to be fooled into accepting immoral acts of violence.

As Mark Twain wrote in 1900, those missionary idealists who have gone to convert the Chinese to Christianity should return home at once to save their own desperate countrymen from the sin of participating in the lynching of blacks:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government has pledged more than $8.8 billion in aid, financing and energy funding in Latin America and the Caribbean so far in 2007. Bandes is a Venezuelan state development bank. Below is a list of pledges sorted by type.

the video freezes at about 1 minute and 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Al-Qaeda for its part, with or without a fake, recycled video-only bin Laden, will keep enjoying the fruits of its brand recognition.

Much more than the Middle East, al-Qaeda's special target audience is western Europe, where a legion of "white Moors" - second-generation, radicalized, born-again Muslims - eagerly accepts its new politico-religious anti-imperial message. The best antidote to this expansion would be the dawn of real representative governments in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Persian Gulf petro-monarchies. It won't happen - at least not in the near future.

American spy chiefs quickly name Bin Laden's replacement and the replacement quickly identifies the new enemy

American spy chiefs were quick to name Adam Gadahn, the head of al-Qaeda's English language media operations, as the author of large sections of bin Laden's broadcast.

A Californian heavy metal fan, who converted to Islam and became the first American to be charged with treason in half a century, has been fingered as the author of Osama bin Laden's latest video lecture - which left the terror chief sounding like an anti-globalisation protester.

a bizarre rant against America, with references to global warming, "insane taxes", the US mortgage market meltdown and rising interest rates.

What surprised analysts was his use of the language of Left-wing protesters, which showed detailed knowledge of the economic travails of middle America.

Bin Laden referred to "the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgage" and blamed "global warming and its woes" on "emissions of the factories the major corporations".

EXPANDING THE DEFINITION OF THE ENEMY: HOW TO GO FROM BIN LADEN TO CHAVEZ

And among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on this topic and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war,

to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like "no to spilling red blood for black oil,"

And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, ... there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any- in the Democrats' failure to stop the war.

It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations...they are the real tyrannical terrorists.

mankind is in danger because of the global warming ... from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, ... the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord,

the world is being dominated by the democratic system, which confirms its massive failure to protect humans and their interests from the greed and avarice of the major corporations and their representatives.

brazen attack on the people, ... Bush, Blair, Sarkozy and Brown- still talk about freedom and human rights with a flagrant disregard for the intellects of human beings. ... you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.

The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of “globalization” in order to protect democracy.

and the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; ... all of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system.

So it is imperative that you free yourselves ... and search for an alternative, ... in which it is not the business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Caricuao is one of the outer western parishes of Caracas. As the subway train from the center of Caracas approaches the parish, we pass by precarious ranchos, or flimsy tin and board houses, nestled in the sides of the looming hills and large project-like buildings with bars across the windows. Radio Perola is located on the ground floor of one of these “projects” or popular blocks, known as Canagua. The broadcasting studio is a small room, painted bright yellow and covered with posters from the social justice movement and community radios. On one large corner table there is a mixer, microphone and computer, and at a round table in the center there are several mikes and chairs.Like other community radio stations in Venezuela, Radio Perola began as a clandestine station nearly nine years ago, and activists have fought for it to be legally authorized by the state. Under the hip-hop inspired slogan, “Maximum Respect!,” community journalists at Radio Perola are creating spaces for new voices, such as those of the young women, to be heard.

a community activist who works with Radio Perola, a Caracas independent radio station that means "Radio Can,"a reference to the string can telephones that many of us know from childhood. In the context of Caracas, where five elite TV stations have long dominated the flow of information, Radio Perola is an example of how the grassroots, in picking up tin can and some string, can take back the media.

The private media has accumulated a large degree of power since the late seventies, due to the growing deregulation and commercialization of media in Venezuela. In 1979, the Venezuelan government sold Channel 5, a state-owned channel, to the private sector. Through the eighties and nineties, successive governments continued the expansion of concessions to media corporations, leading to the centralization of the media in a small number of conglomerates.

Private television at a national level has been monopolized by the Cisneros group (Venevisión) and the 1BC group of Phelps-Granier (Radio Caracas Televisión). Out of 44 regional television networks, nearly all are linked by chain to private networks Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión, Televen, and Globovision. This small group of corporations also control radio-electric spaces and the national press.

The London-based businessman, who has a British passport, has filed a suit against Oleksandr Tretyakov and David Zhvaniya, parliamentarians from the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc, with the High Court of England and Wales, the Ukrainian Justice Ministry said.

Berezovsky, 61, accused the two politicians, who have been summoned to court September 5 to receive subpoenas, of misusing the money he allocated for what he called the development of democracy.The "orange revolution" was a popular bloodless uprising in Ukraine that brought pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko to power following a controversial run-off election November 21, 2004, that declared pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych the victor.

Tretyakov is a former presidential aide, and Zhvaniya was emergencies minister in 2005.

Berezovsky, who is wanted in Russia on charges of fraud and a coup attempt, said he transferred the money to the accounts of Yushchenko's relatives, who have denied the allegations. Berezovsky said he would sue them as well.

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About Me

I am the son of a Huichol medicine man, a Valiente, and a Zapatista. I channel Simón Bolívar when Hugo Chavez isn't in town. In a prior lifetime, I rode with Pancho Villa in the foothills of the Sierra Madre and the Chihuahuan Desert and while I will always admire him, in the end he was a disappointment